Mishandling of feral hogs can be detrimental to your health

Like most landowners who have dealt with feral hogs, James Belcher carries a grudge against the wild swine population that, during the past two decades, has exploded and swarmed like furry locusts across the Texas landscape.

They have pillaged Belcher’s 115 acres in Cherokee County in

East Texas, ceaselessly rooting his pastures and timberland and turning them

into rutted messes. They destroy wildlife food plots and deer feeders, or seize

control of those feeding areas to the exclusion of other wildlife.

“I

don’t even bother with planting food plots anymore. Pigs tear them up as soon as

I put them in,” said Belcher, a 76-year-old Tomball resident. “I think they’ve

rooted up every square inch of the place.”

But Belcher’s reason for

antipathy toward feral hogs goes deeper than just the damage they do to his land